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Report: Payers Adopting More Patient Engagement Platforms

Providers aren’t the only ones trying to get patients more engaged with various technology platforms, according to a new report from Chilmark Research, payers are also getting on board. According to the report, various health insurers have begun creating initiatives which use social media, mobile health (mHealth), and even games to support patient engagement.

The report, titled Benchmark Report: Payer Adoption of Emerging Consumer Tech, looked at 40 such programs, which Chilmark says have showed early promise, despite their infancy.

"The passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is forcing a major restructuring of the healthcare sector and health insurers must innovate to demonstrate value to their customers (employers) and improve margins. As the industry shifts from a fee-for-service to outcomes-based reimbursement models, insurers are implementing several strategies to survive in this new world order," John Moore, founder and managing partner of Chilmark Research, said in a statement.

The report says that the significant improvements in consumer technologies, their growing adoption and use and the introduction of low-cost, biometric devices is making it easier for health insurers to tackle the challenges of the ACA. Many of these insurers are teaming with third parties or developing applications in-house. A few have gone so far as to acquire software companies.

However, Moore says, despite the consumer technology-enabled patient engagement strategies profiled in the report, the industry is still very much in the early-innovator, adoption stage. "The vast majority of health insurers remain sitting on the sidelines,” he said.

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